When creating a new instance or picking a instance to join, what is a good strategy that the user could follow?

Geolocation? Language? Subject?

I think that instances kind of naturally grow to “group” a specific subset of communities, but I may be completely wrong.

Any thoughts on that are highly appreciated.

  • Sunflip@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Honest question: does it really matter what instance I pick? Isn’t the point of the fediverse that you can see content from all instances?

    • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Each instance is run by different administrators that broadly influence the content on their instance - if the instance you picked to join up with goes bad, it could be defederated from and, on the smaller scale, may have people judging your account for being made there.

    • FormerRedditUser@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I guess it matters in some specific scenarios unless it is easy to migrate your profile from one instance to another.

      The scenarios I think about are:

      1. Geolocation. I guess the closer the instance is to you, the faster the content will load. So the closer the instance, the better.
      2. Geolocation “blocking”. I guess if a instance is in one country and that country’s legal system mandates the instance to be blocked, you will lose access to the “fediverse”. So, I guess, the more likely the instance is to blocked, the worse.
      3. Defederation. If for some reason your instance gets “disconnected” from the others, you lose access to the other instances’ content. So I guess “reputation” is key here.
      4. Uptime. Not all instances stay up the same, I guess…
      5. Instance backend versions. Some clients only connect to specific versions.

      But, honestly, even considering the above, I can’t comfortably “choose” a instance. That’s why I came here for help…

      • snailwizard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t stress too much about it, friend. If you’re really stuck just make an account on a Lemmy instance- there are plenty of apps in dev, there is a sizable user base, and it has a good layout.

        I would also recommend making an account on kbin and Mastodon, though, just so you can try different layouts. You should be able to view and subscribe to any federated content, but those instances have different posting styles and vibes you might (or might not) like better. Once you have a handle on where you might like to settle you can simply deactivate your extra accounts.

        • FormerRedditUser@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          What about posts with media? All the instances have the same “throughput” ?

          From what I have seen, I see bunch of links pointing to external services (imgur, youtube and so on), but I don’t why this happens. In Reddit the content appears to be hosted by Reddit itself…

          • snailwizard@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            I think this is another feature that is being worked on, but at the moment there are a LOT of features being worked on lol.